La Puce Enigmatique/The Enigmatic Flea

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side"~~ Aristotle

03 June 2006

theatre of the absurd .....

‘Don’t be misled and believe this is a genuine step forward as surely it’s not.

It’s simply just the latest ploy and example of US deceit designed to solidify support among its European allies, as well as try to convince the Chinese and Russians to come aboard. It’s unlikely they will as those two countries would have a lot to lose should they agree to what the US, in fact, has in mind which has nothing to do with Iran’s legal right to enrich uranium for its commercial nuclear program.

The Iranians are a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and under its rules are behaving in full compliance with it and doing so no differently than all other countries that have signed it and have their own nuclear reactors for commercial use.’

‘“We’re making a significant step here,” that will be criticized by many of the president’s staunchest supporters here at home. But he’s taking this step to show strength and American leadership and to say he’s willing to do something that may be unpopular even with some of his supporters, to remove all excuses from Iran and its supporters to say: “We went the extra mile. We gave Iran really, this last chance to show that they are serious when they say they don’t want nuclear weapons.

02 June 2006

conning condi's diplomatic values .....

‘With an arrogance bordering on intimidation, the administration of George W. Bush wishes to impose its will onto Chile's sovereignty and force that country to impede Venezuela's admission to the United Nations Security Council.

That attempt came to light on Sunday, April 28, when the Chilean daily La Tercera published a report - based on Chilean diplomatic sources - titled "White House Ultimatum." Progreso Weekly has translated that report and summarizes it here. Words [in brackets] are PW's clarifications.

During a visit by Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley to the U.S. State Department on April 21, "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice devoted an overwhelming proportion of her meeting with Foxley to only one issue: Venezuela's candidacy to the United Nations Security Council," La Tercera reported.

"She differentiated this issue from all other regional and multilateral decisions and said its singularity is that 'it aims at the heart of U.S. interests.' Foxley attempted to explain that Chile must consider the opinions of its neighbors and that, in any case, has not yet made a decision [...] but the Secretary of State was unequivocal: the United States 'will not understand' a vote by Chile in favor of Venezuela at the Security Council."’

unfortunate success .....

‘Something that senior officials call the "war paradigm" is the Bush administration's central organizing principle. They do not use the phrase publicly, just among themselves, but they bend policy to serve it. After Sept. 11, 2001, they instantly adopted the war paradigm without any internal discussion. George W. Bush, who proclaimed, "I'm a war president" and insisted that he made decisions "with war on my mind," assumed the war paradigm as his natural state and right.’

spinning our "new" core values .....

‘Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to order today that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new "core values" training in how to operate professionally and humanely.

Not only will leaders discuss how to treat civilians under the rules of engagement, but small units also will be ordered to go through training scenarios to gauge their understanding of those rules.

"It's going to include everyone in the coalition," the official said.’

ah yes, give us another dose of those “new” core values: the sort of values practised by the US “commander-in-thief” – the values you’d expect from a draft dodger, an election fraudster & war criminal.

Yes sirree, the inspiring values of a two-bit politician who has illegally ordered “shock & awe” & killed tens of thousands of innocents at the flick of a switch & without batting an eyelid & calls it “collateral damage”.

A “war leader” of churchillian proportions: who promotes fear over hope; lies, cheats, deceives, practices extortion, is incompetent, puts himself above the law & encourages torture. The “great decider”, who inspires with words like “yer with us or agin’ us” & whose “core values” would make Caligula proud.

Of course the American servicemen who commit assaults, rape & murder in the name of “freedom & democracy” should be punished for their crimes, but it would be a greater crime to blame just a “few bad apples” for the carnage the little bushit & his cowardly accomplices have visited on the world, if they are also not held accountable.

As a former director of a number of companies, I always knew that my every action would be scrutinised by my subordinates & to expect them to behave to the best possible standard required me to observe that same standard: in other words, to lead by example.

How can we blame young American servicemen for losing their way, or Australian servicemen for that matter, when the example set for them by their leadership encourages them to do just that?

We have a prime minister who is as guilty as little bushit when it comes to the war crimes perpetrated against the people of Iraq & Afghanistan. Worse, we have a prime minister who allowed an Australian company to give aid to the “enemy” who threatened the lives of our servicemen & women. Worse than that, we have a prime minister who takes us all for fools by claiming “he didn’t see, didn’t hear, wasn’t told, didn’t know” anything about it.

And worse than that; worse than the myriad of brutal crimes committed against the innocent civilians of Iraq & Afghanistan by the “coalition of the willing” is the “core value” adopted by us – shameful, silent, cowardly acquiescence…..

01 June 2006

in search of wmd .....

‘The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) bans the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition and retention of microbial or other biological agents or toxins, in types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes. The Convention also bans weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict.

The actual use of biological weapons is prohibited by the 1925 Geneva Protocol and Article VIII of the BTWC recognizes that nothing contained in the Convention shall be construed as a derogation from the obligations contained in the Geneva Protocol.

The investment in bio-weapons that is likely to spur a bio-weapons arms race is occurring at a time when the Bush administration is blocking the strengthening of international controls of such weapons. In 2001, the U.S. rejected an effort to conclude an inspections protocol for the BTWC.

The United States was the only country to favour terminating efforts to create a legally binding inspection and verification mechanism. Further, on October 23, 2002, when the UN Disarmament Committee adopted a resolution reaffirming the 1925 Geneva Protocol "prohibiting the use of poisonous gases and bacteriological methods of warfare," the resolution passed unanimously, with two abstentions: the U.S. and Israel. The U.S. abstention amounts to a veto: banning the resolution from being reported.’

latest rodent award .....

‘US antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan denounced the Australian government for its participation in the Iraq war and called for the release of David Hicks from Guantánamo Bay and the closure of the notorious US military prison camp at a demonstration in Melbourne last Friday.

Sheehan rejected US and Australian government claims that Guantánamo inmates “did not deserve civil rights” because they were “illegal enemy combatants”. The four-and-a-half-year incarceration of Hicks, in violation of Geneva Conventions and his basic legal rights, has been fully endorsed by the Howard government.

“George Bush and John Howard and Tony Blair are illegal combatants,” she said, “there’s nothing about this war on terror that is legal. These people perpetuate the torture and the killing and they’re still allowed to run free and live in society.”’

the growing stench of bushit .....

‘Iran does not pose an immediate nuclear threat and the world must act cautiously to avoid repeating mistakes made with Iraq and North Korea, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said on Tuesday.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the world shouldn't "jump the gun" with erroneous information as he said the U.S.-led coalition did in Iraq in 2003, nor should it push the country into retaliation as international sanctions did in North Korea.

"Our assessment is that there is no immediate threat," the winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize told a forum organized by the Monterey Institute of International Studies south of San Francisco. "We still have lots of time to investigate."’

the miracle of snake oil .....

‘Libya's "rehabilitation" as a country that has renounced WMD and state-sponsored terrorism - for which it will soon be rewarded with a real live American ambassador - provides an exquisite illustration of how the Bush administration is replacing its "spreading freedom" mantra with support for the "Global War on Terrorism.

And Libya's role as an energy source has made the administration's job much easier to sell. Its removal it from the list of state sponsors of terror follows the return to Libyan oilfields of the Oasis Group of US companies, according to a top Libyan oil official.

He said he was "positive and confident" the former pariah state would be wiped from the list, with the expected backing of the Oasis Group, comprising ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Amerada Hess.’

freedom's kiss .....

the importance of principles .....

‘We have a Congress that jumped on the Executive’s war-making bandwagon and allowed the Executive to go to war without exercising its own legislative authority by questioning WMD claims that were bushwa.

We have a Congress that, as occurred before with Viet Nam, lacks the brains and guts to exercise its own power to stop the war.

We have a Congress that has itself done nothing effective – zippo – to stop the Executive torture that violates Congress’ own anti-torture statute, that has done nothing to stop rendering for the purpose of torture or to force the closure of secret prisons in awful foreign countries, a Congress that wouldn’t even dream of – and surely does not want to so much as mention – exercising its power to curb these illegalities by impeaching and convicting their perpetrators.

We have a Congress that has done nothing effective to stop the (impeachable) Executive electronic eavesdropping, in violation of Congress’ own law, that was revealed over a year ago (all we ever got on this subject was more hot air from Arlen Specter), and that equally has done nothing to curb the NSA’s mammoth, recently disclosed electronic domestic data mining of almost everyone’s telephone (including, I imagine, the telephones of people in Congress) (and again all we got is hot air from Specter).

We have a Congress that does not prevent the accession to higher benches of judges who, as lawyers, sponsored ideas for massive inroads on the power of Congress.

We have a Congress that has done nothing about the Executive’s 700 plus signing statements saying that it does not have to follow the laws being signed. And this Congress, which has allowed so many phenomenal, and phenomenally important, inroads upon its own power, is the same Congress that is complaining that its prerogatives have been invaded and its power threatened, because the FBI searched the office of a guy who apparently is a big time crook?

31 May 2006

kyoto revisionism .....

‘President Bush’s new nominee for Treasury Secretary, Goldman Sachs Chairman Henry M. Paulson Jr., not only endorses the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse emissions, but argues that the United States’ failure to enact Kyoto undermines the competitiveness of U.S. companies.

“The Kyoto Protocol is a key first step to help slow the onslaught of global warming and benefit conservation efforts…Until the United States passes its own limits on global warming emissions, innovative companies based here will lose out on opportunities to sell reduced emission credits to companies complying with the Kyoto Protocol overseas.

Additionally, without enacting our own emission limits, U.S. companies will lose ground to their competitors in Europe, Canada, Japan, and other countries participating in the Protocol who are developing clean technologies.”’

obviously Henry hasn’t had the benefit of wise counselling from our “didn’t see, didn’t hear, didn’t know”, award winning, international environmental expert rodent, during his last leg along the Potomac …..

drunk on power .....

more "bad apples" .....

‘On November 19, 2005, Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division based at Camp Pendleton allegedly killed 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in a three to five hour rampage. One victim was a 76-year-old amputee in a wheelchair holding a Koran. A mother and child bent over as if in prayer were also among the fallen. "I pretended that I was dead when my brother's body fell on me, and he was bleeding like a faucet," said Safa Younis Salim, a 13-year-old girl who survived by faking her death.

Other victims included girls and boys ages 14, 10, 5, 4, 3 and 1. The Washington Post reported, "Most of the shots ... were fired at such close range that they went through the bodies of the family members and plowed into walls or the floor, doctors at Haditha's hospital said."’

‘The media feeding frenzy around what has been referred to as "Iraq's My Lai" has become frenetic. Focus on US Marines slaughtering at least 20 civilians in Haditha last November is reminiscent of the media spasm around the "scandal" of Abu Ghraib during April and May 2004.

Yet just like Abu Ghraib, while the media spotlight shines squarely on the Haditha massacre, countless atrocities continue daily, conveniently out of the awareness of the general public. Torture did not stop simply because the media finally decided, albeit in horribly belated fashion, to cover the story, and the daily slaughter of Iraqi civilians by US forces and US-backed Iraqi "security" forces had not stopped either.’

30 May 2006

the unravelling .....

‘Just when President Bush was trying to accentuate the positive in Iraq and declare a new beginning in the war on terror, a rash of bad news comes from multiple fronts in the global struggle.

New details are emerging in the killings of two dozen Iraqi civilians at the hands of Marines. Anti-American protesters are staging riots in Afghanistan after a U.S. military convoy rammed into several civilian cars.

And a reported 75 military detainees at Guantanamo Bay are on a hunger strike to protest their continued imprisonment without charges.

Add the trouble to the continuing daily violence in Iraq - at least 40 were killed in a series of bombings Monday, including two from a CBS News crew - and Bush could be in danger of losing even more support for his mission.

‘What does it mean, this Memorial Day, to die in a war so founded on lies?

While George W. Bush assures our soldiers they fight for Iraqi freedom and to “make America safer for generations to come,” 82 percent of Iraqis, according to a British Ministry of Defense poll, say they’re "strongly opposed" to the presence of American and British troops and 45 percent justify attacks against them.

This gives rise to what psychologist Robert Jay Lifton calls “an atrocity-creating situation.”

Lifton first coined the phrase during Vietnam. He now uses it to describe a “counterinsurgency war in which U.S. soldiers, despite their extraordinary firepower, feel extremely vulnerable in a hostile environment,” amplified by “the great difficulty of tracking down or even recognizing the enemy.”

This sense of an environment out of control has seeded the ground for Abu Ghraib and for massacres at the villages of Haditha and Mukaradeeb, already being compared to My Lai.

Former Army sniper Jody Casey recently described his unit keeping extra spades on their vehicles so that if they killed innocent Iraqis in response to an attack, they could throw one next to the corpses to make it appear as if those killed were preparing a roadside bomb.’

29 May 2006

move over saddam .....

‘People tell me that Saddam Hussein is a very bad man. Probably he is. Ok, really he is. He is egregiously immoral and ghastly. Should he be put on trial? Can such a trial be fair? This is where it gets complicated.

If all heads of state who commit violent acts were to be tried as criminals, we would live in a very different world. It would be a world without governments as we know them. Let's say that you like that idea. You might argue that lopping off Saddam's head is as good a place to start as any.’

‘Wasn’t it evil for the US to bomb Iraq for a decade and to embargo medicines for children? When US Secretary of State M. Albright was asked if she thought an embargo that resulted in the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was justified, she replied, "yes."

The former terrible tyrant ruler of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, is on trial for killing 150 people. The US government murdered 500,000 Iraqi children prior to Bush’s invasion. When the US government murders people, whether Serbs, Branch Davidians at Waco, or Iraqi women and children, it is "collateral damage." But we put Saddam Hussein on trial for putting down rebellions.’

the racket .....

It was written by Devon M. Largio in 2004 as a thesis for a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Illinois. It is a total of 212 pages. Print it out and read it in its entirety. If you don’t have time to read it right now then at least read her executive summary.

Largio documents twenty-seven rationales given for the war by the Bush administration, war hawks in Congress, and the media between the September 11th attacks and the October 2002 congressional resolution to use force in Iraq. It was "the Bush administration, and the President himself" that "established the majority of the rationales for the war and all of those rationales that make up the most prominent reasons for war."

The result of this investigation shows that Bush is a bigger liar than Clinton ever was, and, even worse, his lies are more deadly.’

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